Mobile Phone Etiquette

[WendyS]

Not sure where to post this but does a formal Mobile Phone Etiquette exist and if so, how can I make others aware of it? It drives me crazy when people answer their mobile phones when invited to dinner or during similar private occasions. Am I old fashioned or have good manners simply disappeared? What do others thinK? I've even come across somebody answering a mobile phone during a funeral service in a crematorium !

[maggie01]

I think it's up to the courtesy of each individual to switch off their mobiles at the appropriate times. It can be very annoying. I also hate it when you are out for a meal and someone at another table is using their mobile. For some reason they have to talk louder than they would if the person were sitting in front of them. Mobiles are an excellent invention but there's a time and a place

[woofgang]

well I doesn't seem to be well known or agreed upon does it!

here's what Debrett says

http://www.debretts.co.uk/etiquette/netiquette.html

google on mobile phone manners for more stuff!

[curiosity]

I hate it too, our nurses office is full of handbags with mobile phones in, some with really loud text alert tones or ringtones and when you're in the middle of a complex conversation with a colleague, all of a sudden Sweet Home Alabama starts playing then a boing noise kicks off seconds later only to be joined by Peter Kay shouting "It's spitting, It's spitting" all highly entertaining but only in the right place!

[Golem]

I'm a paramedic. I've lost count of the number of times I've arrived at the scene of a minor car accident, the 'patient', usually complaining of back and neck pain, is sitting in the driving seat on their mobile to mum, dad, girlfriend, boyfriend, aunt, uncle, neighbour, babysitter, wife's second cousin third removed, butcher, friend of babysitter's neighbour who has a boyfriend that once dated the sister of her aunt's butcher - or whoever. The conversation usually goes, "Yeh, the medics are here now; he's putting a collar round my neck so's I can't move and trying to put an oxygen mask on me ... got to go, yeh, I'll call you from the hospital, ....no, it's in the fridge next to the cheese, ... just let her out for five minutes in the garden but make sure she comes back in immediately, the miserable sod next door complained about her peeing on his roses last week ...." and on and on and on. I've been told to wait (wait!!!) until they finish the conversation before I take their blood pressure, put a bandage on a bleeding head injury or even splint a fractured leg. Some people have really become enslaved to them; both physically and emotionally.

[copippin]

Hi wendy ,no I don't think you are old fashioned at all in expecting some decorum over the usage of a mobile phone.It seems--thanks to woofgang's answer that Debretts suggest rules which the average person would adhere to automatically,but I guess there will always be people who simply don't think they are being ill-mannered or annoying by thoughtless usage of the thing. I believe that" Manners maketh man" and they costs nothing to implement.

[shaneystar]

I had the misfortune to travel up to London on the train recently and by the time I got there knew just about everything there was to know about my fellow travellers,their families,their bits on the side,their pets and on and on ad infinitum.Plus a raging headache when I finally arrived in Liverpool Street..
They are a fine idea and I have one myself but this inane chatter in public places winds me up.

[AliFlump]

I heard a story once about a woman who was travelling on a train and on her mobile the whole time, she was calling everyone and they were calling her. she then got a call from someone she didnt know, he told her her phone number, addesss, name, bank, where she worked etc, when she asked where he had got all this info he said 'From you im sitting behind you'

imagine what he could have done with that info!!